


Less than Words (The Left Unsaid Remix)

by 1848pianist



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Erik Has Telepathy, M/M, Telepathy, X-Men: First Class (2011)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-01 01:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15132590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1848pianist/pseuds/1848pianist
Summary: Erik realizes that in addition to Charles hearing his thoughts, he can hear Charles'.





	Less than Words (The Left Unsaid Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arcapelago (arcanewinter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanewinter/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Less than Words](https://archiveofourown.org/works/248745) by [arcapelago (arcanewinter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanewinter/pseuds/arcapelago). 



> I hope I did this idea justice, it's such a good one! I may have to return to it in a future AU...

The first time Erik hears Charles’ thoughts is the night he tries to leave the CIA compound. As he walks away from the building, he has the uncanny feeling he’s being watched. It’s not an uncommon feeling for him, and he’s certain that his instinct is correct.

He turns just in time to see Charles step out of the shadows.

“With what I know about you, I’m surprised you managed to stay this long.” Charles’ expression, irritatingly smug, reveals his pleasure at being able to read Erik so well after knowing him so short a time. It’s enough to make Erik pause, if only to prove Charles wrong.

“What do you know about me?”

He can guess what Charles is going to say even before he says it.

“Everything” is an exaggeration, of course. There’s a lot that Charles doesn’t know about him. A lot that he doesn’t _want_ Charles to know about him. But somehow he knew Charles was going to say it, and what’s more, he knows what Charles means by it. He doesn’t know all the details of Erik’s past, but he knows _Erik_. As a person – a fellow mutant, at that.

It’s been a very long time indeed since anyone really knew Erik or since he got to know anyone else. How could he have known what Charles was going to say?

Charles must have been projecting, trying to offer more proof of their connection, trying to convince Erik to stay. And it must work, because Erik finds himself walking back into the compound, even more intrigued and confused by Charles than before.

He doesn’t fully realize what’s happened until the next morning, when he joins the conversation about Cerebro and finding other mutants. Charles, less aware of his surroundings than he should be, doesn’t notice him until he speaks. At that moment, surprise, relief, delight, and no small amount of satisfaction burst into his mind. He realizes the feelings aren’t his own only as Charles meets his eyes.

“Erik! You decided to stay.” _Welcome back, my friend_. This is different, far more deliberate than the nebulous emotions Erik had just picked up on. What’s more, it seems Charles is as oblivious to Erik’s knowledge of them as he was to Erik entering the room.

 _Is telepathy contagious?_ he wonders.

As the conversation turns back to the use of Cerebro, he forces himself to push the matter aside and concentrate on the matter at hand. There are more important things to discuss, and there will be time later to consider the implications of this new…mutation? Side effect?

Whatever it is, it only makes Erik more curious about Charles than before.

*

Over the course of the day, he resolves not to mention his new ability until he better understands what is happening. There’s still a chance that he’s imagining it, anticipating Charles’ thoughts rather than actually reading them, and the last thing he wants to appear is a fool, unable to tell Charles’ thoughts from his own.

Though he can’t understand how else he could have connected with Charles so quickly.

Initially, he sticks only to Charles’ surface thoughts and overall mental state, which are hard _not_ to overhear. With his open expressions and willingness to talk, Charles would be easier than most for Erik to read. In just a few short conversations, Erik pieces together the more significant parts of Charles biography, including his research at Oxford, his politics, his relationship to Raven, his interest in chess, and, most inexplicably, the fact that he seems to enjoy Erik’s company despite knowing several other mutants already.

Beyond that, Erik is reluctant to experiment too wildly with his new power. For one thing, Erik is uncertain how he feels about being able to read Charles’ private thoughts – or Charles being able to read his and everyone else’s for that matter. For another, he’s certain Charles would be able to sense his clumsy attempts.

Additionally – and this would be true with or without telepathy – Erik is slightly overwhelmed by Charles. The man is intense in a way Erik is wholly unused to, and in a way that he doesn’t entirely mind. Charles has the effect of making it difficult to think clearly in his presence, but Erik finds he only wants to spend _more_ time with him. It certainly is confusing.

To his relief, it seems that his telepathy only applies to Charles. Erik can’t sense a thing from Raven, Moira, or any of the CIA agents, even when they’re speaking directly to him. He wonders if something happened when Charles pulled him out of the water. If they connected, somehow.

Charles would be the person to ask, he supposes. Not that he intends to do so now.

At the moment, they’re sitting in a relatively quiet corner of the CIA base. Charles has just finished another round in Cerebro, which Erik is finding makes him slightly giddy and a very unfocused chess player. The half-finished game is still sitting on the table between them, though Erik would bet he could win in three moves.

_Erik—_

Erik looks up, realizing too late that Charles hasn’t actually spoken his name aloud. To his relief, Charles just smiles.

“How do you feel about a road trip?”

Erik returns the smile despite himself. Being easy to read doesn’t always make Charles predictable. “A road trip?”

“Hank tells me that after another day in Cerebro, we’ll be able to start recruiting. In forty-eight hours we could be sitting across the table from another mutant, Erik, think of it.”

Charles’ enthusiasm is electric, contagious. When he meets Charles’ eyes, he knows without looking into his mind that they’re both thinking of the same thing: the future and all the possibilities it might hold.

*

Weeks later, and it’s another evening, another chess game. Charles’ home makes for a nicer setting than the CIA compound, but now the anticipation of tomorrow’s events brings tension rather than excitement. Tomorrow, when they fight Shaw, is what this has all been leading up to, but that doesn’t make it feel any more real to Erik.

For all its superficial similarities, tonight is nothing like the other nights Erik has spent over a chess board with Charles. Tonight, they’re both on edge, playing to win.

Charles has a habit of leaning forward across the board, as though he has to compensate for forgoing his powers during the game with physical closeness. Right now, though, he’s turned so far in his chair that he’s almost facing away from Erik. That doesn’t stop him studying Erik’s every move – in the game and in life – with unusual intensity.

Something has shifted between them, even just since this afternoon at the satellite dish. Then, Erik had felt closer to Charles than he’d ever felt to anyone. Now, he’s sitting right across from him and couldn’t feel further away. Charles’ expression is inscrutable.

Erik has pulled back from Charles’ mind too. He can’t say that it’s entirely for the sake of the game. He knows as well as Charles does that tomorrow could change everything.

Perhaps it’s the deliberate lack of connection makes him harder on Charles than he would otherwise be. Or maybe it’s just the finality of their argument. Tomorrow, they have to act on their ideals. There’s no room for compromise, no telling themselves that there’s no hurry to convince the other.

“Shaw has to be stopped,” Charles says casually, clearly thinking that this, at least, they can agree on.

Instead, it stops Erik in his tracks. “I’m not going to stop Shaw. I’m going to kill him.” He means the words to provoke Charles, and they do. At least, Erik thinks, they can say what they mean now, rather than dancing around the argument all night.

For all Charles’ access to other minds, Erik finds himself thinking that his perspective is still limited by his own experience. Can’t he see that he’s been lucky? That the world is crueler than he believes? He wonders how Charles could ever have claimed to know everything about him if he didn’t understand that.

Now Charles leans forward, game forgotten. “Listen to me very carefully, my friend.”

At this, Erik looks up. He still retains some glimmer of hope. Somehow they’ll find their way out of this. Somehow they’ll see eye-to-eye.

“Killing Shaw will not bring you peace,” Charles says, deadly serious.

“Peace was never an option,” Erik tells him, solidifying what he’s always known into words he can never take back.

*

As soon as he puts Shaw’s helmet on, Erik knows that Charles is lost to him. The sense of Charles’ mind that has become so familiar, so constant, is gone, and for the first time in many weeks Erik is entirely alone in his own head. It should be a familiar feeling, but instead it just feels like a loss.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he had said, and he had been telling the truth.

It’s himself he doesn’t trust – it’s just a few weeks that he’s been in contact with Charles’ mind, and already he’s doubting the things he’s been certain of his entire life. This is the only way, but Charles—Charles could convince him otherwise. Part of Erik wants to be convinced. That is a risk he can’t afford to take, not now.

Everything falls apart anyway.

Erik had never been able to see a happy ending to this. But for a moment, he’d stopped imagining the worst.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. As he holds Charles in his arms, heart still pounding from the fear that he’d killed him, he thinks that he could never have imagined this. He never thought that Charles would say “no,” to him, flat out. _We do not want the same thing_. He had thought he knew Charles so well, but he did not.

Charles’ blindingly blue eyes reveal nothing, and there is no voice in Erik’s head to give him hope that things will ever be any different.

*

Charles is waiting for him, alerted by Azazel teleporting to the edge of the property. He doesn’t speak as Erik approaches, even when Erik stops a few feet in front of him.

Erik doesn’t know what to expect, how Charles will react to his presence. He had relied on telepathy around Charles more than he had thought. He no longer finds Charles easy to read. Or maybe he’s just changed. He wonders if Charles is thinking the same about him.

It’s ironic, Erik thinks, that the helmet which keeps their minds separate is the only reason he can go to see Charles now. The distance it creates makes their current proximity possible.

“You came back,” Charles finally says.

Erik nods.

“Not to stay, or you wouldn’t be wearing that—” Charles glances away, and when he looks back his anger is visible.

“No. Not to stay. But to apologize.”

“Apologize,” Charles repeats.

“Charles, I never wanted—”

“You can’t change what happened.”

Erik’s carefully crafted words vanish from his mind. “No.”

Charles must hate him. It’s no less than Erik deserves, and if he took off the helmet, he would know for certain. More than anything else, it’s this reason that he keeps the helmet on.

And because if he heard Charles’ voice in his head again, he might never leave.

Charles is still looking at him from behind an impenetrable wall of anger, clearly expecting more.

“I can’t change what happened, and I can’t change your mind,” Erik says. “Where does that leave us?”

Charles closes his eyes. Erik wants to scream – if only Charles would just talk to him.

When it’s clear that neither of them have anything more to say, Erik turns to leave. He waits for Charles’ voice to call him back, but the only thing he hears is nothing more than his own wishful thinking.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this doesn't feel rushed, as I'm in the midst of moving somewhat sooner than expected!


End file.
